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Osteoblast-derived WNT16 represses osteoclastogenesis and prevents cortical bone fragility fractures

Nature Medicine volume 20, pages 1279–1288 (2014)Cite this article

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Abstract

The WNT16 locus is a major determinant of cortical bone thickness and nonvertebral fracture risk in humans. The disability, mortality and costs caused by osteoporosis-induced nonvertebral fractures are enormous. We demonstrate here that Wnt16-deficient mice develop spontaneous fractures as a result of low cortical thickness and high cortical porosity. In contrast, trabecular bone volume is not altered in these mice. Mechanistic studies revealed that WNT16 is osteoblast derived and inhibits human and mouse osteoclastogenesis both directly by acting on osteoclast progenitors and indirectly by increasing expression of osteoprotegerin (Opg) in osteoblasts. The signaling pathway activated by WNT16 in osteoclast progenitors is noncanonical, whereas the pathway activated in osteoblasts is both canonical and noncanonical. Conditional Wnt16 inactivation revealed that osteoblast-lineage cells are the principal source of WNT16, and its targeted deletion in osteoblasts increases fracture susceptibility. Thus, osteoblast-derived WNT16 is a previously unreported key regulator of osteoclastogenesis and fracture susceptibility. These findings open new avenues for the specific prevention or treatment of nonvertebral fractures, a substantial unmet medical need.

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Figure 1: Wnt16−/− mice have reduced cortical but not trabecular bone mass.
Figure 2: Spontaneous fractures as a result of several defects of cortical bone in Wnt16−/− mice.
Figure 3: Osteoblast-derived WNT16 inhibits osteoclastogenesis.
Figure 4: WNT16 increases OPG expression and signals through both canonical and noncanonical pathways in osteoblasts.
Figure 5: WNT16 inhibits osteoclast differentiation through noncanonical WNT pathways.
Figure 6: Osteoblasts are the principal source of WNT16, with an impact on cortical bone and fracture susceptibility.

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful to C. Uggla, M. Petersson, A. Hansevi, A. Lie, I. Lundgren, B. Aleksic and the staff at the Turku Center for Disease Modeling (TCDM) for technical assistance. We thank M. Johansson at Bergman Labora for help with photographing the embryos. We thank R. Brommage (Lexicon Pharmaceuticals Inc.) for providing the Wnt16−/−, exon 1−3 mice. This study was supported by the Swedish Research Council, the Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research, COMBINE, the Avtal om Läkarutbildning och Forskning/Läkarutbildningsavtalet (ALF/LUA) research grant in Gothenburg, Linköping University, Swedish National Graduate School in Odontological Sciences, the Lundberg Foundation, the Torsten and Ragnar Söderberg's Foundation, the Swedish Rheumatism Association, the Royal 80 Year Fund of King Gustav V, the Novo Nordisk Foundation and the German Research Foundation (SPP 1468 Tu220/6, Immunobone). The work at TCDM was supported by funding provided by University of Turku and Biocenter Finland. This work was supported in part by a grant to R.B. from the US National Institutes of Health (R01AR064724). The HSDM micro-CT core facility performed the micro-CT analyses of the Wnt16−/−, exon 1−3 mice.

Author information

Author notes

  1. Xianwen Liu & Hiroaki Saito

    Present address: Present addresses: Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, Guangdong Provincial Hospital of Stomatology, Southern Medical University, China (X.L.), and Heisenberg Group for Molecular Skeletal Biology (MSB-Lab), Department of Trauma, Hand and Reconstructive Surgery, University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf, Hamburg, Germany (H.S.).,

  2. Sofia Movérare-Skrtic, Petra Henning, Xianwen Liu, Roland Baron, Ulf H Lerner, Francesca Gori and Claes Ohlsson: These authors contributed equally to this work.

  3. Roland Baron, Ulf H Lerner, Francesca Gori and Claes Ohlsson: These authors jointly supervised this work.

  4. francesca_gori@hsdm.harvard.edu

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Bone and Arthritis Research at Institute of Medicine, Sahlgrenska Academy at University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden

    Sofia Movérare-Skrtic, Petra Henning, Anna E Börjesson, Klara Sjögren, Sara H Windahl, Helen Farman, Bert Kindlund, Cecilia Engdahl, Catharina Lindholm, Matti Poutanen, Ulf H Lerner & Claes Ohlsson

  2. Department of Oral Medicine, Infection and Immunity, Harvard School of Dental Medicine, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

    Xianwen Liu, Kenichi Nagano, Hiroaki Saito, Roland Baron & Francesca Gori

  3. State Key Laboratory of Oral Diseases and Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery, West China Hospital of Stomatology, Sichuan University, Sichuan, China

    Xianwen Liu

  4. Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology, Medical Research Center, University of Oulu, Oulu, Finland

    Antti Koskela & Juha Tuukkanen

  5. Department of Physiology, Turku Center for Disease Modeling, Institute of Biomedicine, University of Turku, Turku, Finland

    Fu-Ping Zhang & Matti Poutanen

  6. Department of Women's and Children's Health, Karolinska Institutet, Pediatric Endocrinology Unit, Stockholm, Sweden

    Emma E Eriksson, Farasat Zaman & Lars Sävendahl

  7. Developmental and Stem Cell Biology, the Hospital for Sick Children, University of Toronto, Toronto, Ontario, Canada

    Farasat Zaman

  8. Department of Molecular and Clinical Medicine, Lundberg Laboratory for Diabetes Research, Sahlgrenska Academy at University of Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden

    Ann Hammarstedt

  9. Department of Biomedical Engineering, Lund University, Lund, Sweden

    Hanna Isaksson

  10. Department of Orthopedics, Lund University, Lund, Sweden

    Hanna Isaksson

  11. Department of Applied Physics, Division of Biological Physics, Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden

    Marta Bally

  12. Molecular Periodontology, Umeå University, Umeå, Sweden

    Ali Kassem & Ulf H Lerner

  13. Department of Clinical and Experimental Medicine, Orthopaedics, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden

    Olof Sandberg & Per Aspenberg

  14. Department of Biomedical Sciences, Baylor College of Dentistry, Texas A&M Health Science Center, Dallas, Texas, USA

    Jian Q Feng

  15. Institute of General Zoology and Endocrinology, University of Ulm, Ulm, Germany

    Jan Tuckermann

  16. Department of Medicine, Endocrine Unit, Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

    Roland Baron & Francesca Gori

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  1. Sofia Movérare-Skrtic
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Contributions

S.M.-S., P.H. and X.L. contributed equally to this work. S.M.-S. was responsible for the breeding, phenotyping and treatment of the Wnt16−/−, exon 1−4 and conditional Wnt16flox/flox mouse strains. P.H. conducted the in vitro culture experiments and analyses of primary osteoblasts, cocultures and osteoclasts. X.L. was responsible for the breeding and phenotyping of the Wnt16−/−, exon 1−3 mouse colony and conducted in vitro and ex vivo experiments. H.S. assisted with animal experiments and performed initial bone histomorphometry analyses. K.N. performed bone histomorphometry analyses. A.E.B. assisted with animal experiments and performed micro-CT analysis. K.S., S.H.W., H.F., H.I. and C.E. assisted with animal experiments. B.K. performed the FACS analysis. A. Koskela and J. Tuukkanen performed the three-point bending experiments. F.-P.Z. and M.P. generated the conditional Wnt16flox/flox mice. E.E.E., F.Z. and L.S. performed the immunohistochemistry. A.H. performed western blots. M.B. produced the WNT16 liposomes. A. Kassem and C.L. performed the inflammation-induced calvarial bone loss model. O.S. and P.A. performed the rat metaphyseal WNT16 injections. J.Q.F. provided the Dpm1-cre mice. J. Tuckermann provided the Runx2-cre mice. S.M.-S., P.H., R.B., U.H.L., F.G. and C.O. designed and supervised the project and wrote the manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Roland Baron, Ulf H Lerner or Claes Ohlsson.

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Movérare-Skrtic, S., Henning, P., Liu, X. et al. Osteoblast-derived WNT16 represses osteoclastogenesis and prevents cortical bone fragility fractures. Nat Med 20, 1279–1288 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1038/nm.3654

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